In Dialogue with Clay

Abstract: This paper is about my relationship to the material clay, and how it has affected my creative process. In this text I argue that clay is a material with human properties. I think of my practice as a dialogue between me and the material, an exchange rather than a monologue. This is how I picture clay as my main partner for discussing the deeper questions of what it is to be human, how clay as material can stand as metaphor for what it is to be living. I argue that clay has the poetic strength to communicate these questions of life of a more existential nature. Through the argument of clay being a material with human properties, I reason that a practice in materiality is a study of empathy since we spend much time with our materials to fully grasp how they behave. I firmly believe that this world is in need of an empathic movement, and I think that the field of craft has the possibility to be part of that movement. I see practitioners within the field of craft as practitioners of the sometimes irrational, emotional and indescribable parts of life. As researchers of the more existential qualities of life, I believe that we are important voices in a society that is getting more focused on rationality. With some help from writers, practitioners and philosophers within and outside the field of craft, I reason around the following research question: Can a material based practice stand as lodestar in todays society, to show empathy towards each other as beings as well as our surroundings?